By: Manila Standard
Conglomerate Ayala Corp. said Monday capital expenditures could reach P182 billion in 2021 as the group remains “cautiously optimistic” about the growth of the domestic economy.
This year’s planned spending would be 16 percent higher than P157 billion the Ayala Group invested in 2020.
Ayala Corp. president and chief operating officer Fernando Zobel de Ayala said in a televised briefing with Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque consumer behavior and mobility improved over the past several months while companies started to expand and invest again.
“I was quite pleasantly surprised that our overseas Filipino remittance numbers did not go down as much as we thought they would and are now doing a little better. So I am cautiously optimistic and hopeful that we will see growth of 5 percent to 6 percent this year, which is a very dramatic reversal from what we have seen last year, for understandable reasons,” Zobel de Ayala said.
He said the low-interest rate environment allowed many companies to raise capital to help people and keep businesses running amid the pandemic.
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